ABOUT US

Steve Friess is a 2011-12 recipient of the prestigious Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he will be studying the impact of the rapid expansion of Vegas-style gaming on Asia. He's a podcaster, author and Vegas-based freelance journalist who writes regularly for USA Today, The New York Times, Newsweek and many others. His column, "The Strip Sense" appears every Thursday in the Las Vegas Weekly. His books include "Gay Vegas" from Huntington Press and Knopf Mapguides' "Las Vegas."Friess co-hosts the weekly celebrity interview podcast The Strip Podcast "The Strip" with his husband, Miles Smith, the executive producer at KSNV-TV, Channel 3. For four years, Steve also co-hosted The Petcast with Las Vegas Sun education scribe Emily Richmond.

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Sunday, May 2, 2010

At her star unveiling on the Strip on Friday, pop legend Gloria Estefan hinted that she would being doing something really big in Las Vegas that we'd all learn about very soon. In my subsequent interview with her for The Strip, she gave up little detail except, "We’re very excited. I think it’s going to be one of the most exciting things we’ve ever done." I asked if it was anything like the Donny & Marie show since we were standing directly below their marquee, and she said:

"No, no, you’ll see. I can’t. I never should have opened that can of worms. You’ll see. I can’t talk about it right now but it’s going to be really different, that’s all I can say."

Well, as with any major new endeavor, there are lots and lots of people in the know. And after I Tweeted about Gloria's tease, I had insiders provide me essentially the same story.

According to them, the Estefans and uber-producer Bernie Yuman are planning a biographical show about Gloria Estefan using her music but not featuring her as a performer. The show is expected to go into the renovated Tiffany Theater at the Tropicana. The timeline is a bit unclear, too. Yuman, Siegfried & Roy's longtime manager, has a long history with the Estefans that includes booking her at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace and recently helping them buy a minority stake in the Miami Dolphins. Yuman is a legendary Dolphins fan who always wears the socks with the team's imprimatur on it.

Yuman declined to comment. The Trop's spokeswoman, Brandie Feuer, said she couldn't confirm this. But nor did either of them deny it, and I've got more than one source.

So it sounds like something of a Latin-themed jukebox musical born in Vegas rather than Broadway. That makes some sense even if I what I really want is for Estefan to pull a Garth and settle down for low-energy, stripped-down acoustical show. She, like Brooks, has the range, the fan base and the musical competence to do it.

That said, I've been revisiting my Estefan CDs in my car lately and wow, that remains terrific pop music. So whatever they can do to bring it back to the fore is fine by me.

THE STRIP FINALE

Below are links to the final episodes and last week of special editions of The Strip Podcast. Right-click on any of these to save and hear at your leisure. Otherwise, click on them and they should play. Enjoy, and thanks for the wonderful years.